The Beautiful Land Of Pass
The Beautiful Land Of Pass is the 32nd episode of FruityTales. The story is based on the Bible story "The Prodigal Son" and a parody of L. Frank Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz". Plot Darby O'Gill (Timmy Strawberry) resides at the O'Gill apartment and is the son of a Kansas floss farmer (Dad Celery), but he just wants to have fun more than anything else in the world. When he learns about a fancy amusement park known as The Beautiful Land Of Pass and its mysterious land who promises to make his dreams come true, Darby is determined to go with his money despite his father warning that it is for college and then tells him he’s needed to help with the harvest. Darby decides to leave with his pet pig Tutu by his side, as the two flee the cornfields and hide inside a trailer as a tornado sweeps them away to the Lizard of Pass. Along the way he meets a scarecrow (Mr. Morty) who is bored, a tin man (Harry The Banana) who loves to ride roller coasters, and a lion (Pa Orange) who craves cotton candy. Each with their own dreams, they set to ease on down with the toad in The Land of Pass, the funnest place on Earth. The group spends a great deal of time in The Land of Pass, but soon run out of money and are forced to leave as the land informs Darby that he is a phony business man (Archibald Celery) who used his wizard identity to make money for a living. Darby is disappointed and angry at the wizard, while being unsure of what to do as he's afraid that his father will hate him for wasting his college funds. Threatening to tell the world about what The Land’s Land is really like, the wizard takes Darby hostage and throws him in his basement. However Darby's friends eventually break him out of the basement and publicly humiliate the fake land. In the end, Darby sadly leaves his friends and goes back home. Once there, Darby sees his dad and apologizes to him, as he offers to become his slave if he will only take him back, but his dad refuses his offer and accepts him back as his son. Production Philippe Vischer wanted to retell the story of the Prodigal Son for FruityTales, but the only two factors why it wasn't told was because it was both not that fun, and it was too short. So he decided to add elements from the "The Wizard of Oz" since he discovered it was similarly structured as "Prodigal Son". So Philippe wrote the script in 2006, but it wasn't in production until 2007 or 2008. The reason was because of what happened after the release of his last story, where they got in copyright trouble with New Line Cinema when they warned them about copying elements from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Fun Facts Explanations * Shipshewana is a town in Indiana, which there are small Amish communities. They often have craft shows and sell kits. * Rainbows are created when sunlight hits a sort of prism (eg. glass, water). * Lion stating the forest is run by a representative government and he is just a figurehead reelects towards the current British government. Trivia * This was the first episode for several things: ** The first episode Rob and Harry refer the episode as a video format. ** The first episode since Petunia's debut episode to have a new turn-on animation for Azerty since A Snail’s Tale. ** The first episode where a child from the Make-a-Wish foundation voiced a character. ** The first episode Chris Wall produced. ** The first episode since A Snoodle's Tale to be distributed by Warner Home Video. * This was the last episode for several things: ** The last episode to be animated by Jam Filled Toronto. ** The last Fall released episode to not be Christmas related until The League of Incredible Fruits. ** The last FruityTales episode to be filmed in fullscreen. * There were a few differences between pre-production and the final version: ** According to Ryan Roberts, Jim Hodge was originally the director for the first two phases until he took over. ** Bessie was added in the final. ** Yellow Mctoad was added by Mark Nawrocki. ** Joe Spadaford stated they were thinking of using Laura as the main star. ** Harry and Mr. Morty were just them dressed up without the textures. This was changed after Philippe detested. ** Rob was going to have cottonballs to cancel out the song. ** The candy corn field was originally written as just a field of corn. Ryan thought of making it as toilet paper, but Philippe detested it. ** The script called for a hundred puppies in the field. This changed to at least around 10. ** Philippe originally wanted to have Jimmy to play as the wizard. However, they changed to Archibald as they think he fits better. ** The song was just the choir singing 3 times. Ryan suggested that the characters should sing parts of it. ** It was Chester who imprisoned Darby, instead of the Wizard dropping him in the garbage chute. ** Rob and Harry were originally going to cry over the outcome of the story. * Although the movie tends to parody songs from The Wizard of Oz with different melodies, at the end credits, Mr. Morty sings the real "Over the Rainbow." * This is one of the very few FruityTales DVDs released by Warner Home Video to have the respective company's logo at the beginning of the DVD. In this case, it's the full screen acoustic strings Warner Home Video logo. ** The Warner Home Video Warning Screen is also used instead of the Big Deal one, though it can be assumed that this logo appeared since Warner Brothers has rights to "The Wizard of Oz" film Remarks * Because this episode was filmed in 4:3, the Blu-ray release cropped it to 16:9. * The lion breaks the fourth wall when he states he's not allowed to eat animals due to kids watching. * If you look closely after Scarecrow opens the latch, his nose stuck on the bars is slightly bigger. Ryan Roberts states that a false nose because his normal one couldn't be seen. * Rob pulls out the headphones from nowhere. Inside References * Harry previously mentioned his dad in an earlier episode. * Darby and his dad exchange the lines calling themselves Little and Big Mister. Real World References * The nanny that shows up when the storm's coming is a spoof on Mary Poppins. * Spam is spice ham in a can. This is often joked on Monty Python. * Darby and Scarecrow saying "Tin Man, rusted" is a reference to the B-52s' song "Love Shack". Fast Forward * Elements of this episode would be used later for the FruityTales in the City episode, "Prodigal Timmy."